UGC — is content created by ordinary users rather than the brand itself: reviews, product photos and videos, unboxings, product reviews and social media posts.
People trust this type of content more than advertising: instead of a staged brand video, they see the experience of another customer just like themselves. That's why brands collect customer reviews and use them in their promotions, and also commission videos in this style from UGC creators. These are people who make videos that look as though they were filmed by ordinary users. Unlike influencers, UGC creators don't sell access to their audience but rather the video itself and the right to use it in advertising.
UGC in traffic arbitrage
In traffic arbitrage, UGC — is a creative format: videos that look as though they were filmed on a phone by an ordinary person. This could be a review, an unboxing, a «before and after» comparison or simply someone sharing their experience. Such videos don't look like ads and appear as ordinary posts in the feed, so people are less likely to scroll past them and tend to trust them more.
Where to get UGC creatives:
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film them yourself or hire actors;
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commission them from UGC creators;
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purchase the rights to existing videos;
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generate them using AI, with AI avatars instead of real people.
Pros and cons
Pros:
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more trust and less resistance than traditional advertising;
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cheaper than professional video production;
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easy to create multiple variations of the same video for testing.
Cons:
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with frequent exposure, UGC experiences creative fatigue just like regular ad creatives, so a constant supply of new videos is needed;
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on some platforms and in some countries, AI-generated videos must be labeled as AI content.
Important: you cannot use other people's social media videos in advertising, even if they're publicly available. Doing so without the creator's permission violates their rights, so make agreements with creators and purchase the rights to use their videos.
